This blog will be used to reflect / announce the happenings and interests at PLATFORM in Winnipeg. Known as The Floating Gallery between 1981 and 2004, at which point we were renamed PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts to reflect a diverse adjustment to programming and outreach initiatives

Aleesa Cohene is a Toronto based video artist who uses found-footage as material and editing as a tool. Through this technique, Cohene provides us with a lens under which the viewer can see and examine many of the stereotypes present in traditional narrative cinema. In essence, she is revealing the mirror in which the media uses to reflect our “beliefs” back to us.

Currently, Cohene is protected under Fair Dealings in Canada. However, given recent attempts to reform Canada’s copyright laws, Cohene could be recast as a digital outlaw. Artistically and ethically speaking, Cohene does not see these images as private property, but as “basic materials through which we have an obligation to express ourselves and define our individuality.”

Aleesa Cohene has been producing videos since 2001. Her work has shown in festivals and galleries across Canada as well as in Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Scandinavia, Thailand, Turkey and the United States, and she has won prizes at Utrecht’s Impakt Festival and Toronto’s Images Festival. She has participated in artist residencies in Canada, the Netherlands and Denmark. She recently completed a fellowship at the Kunsthochschule für Medien (KHM) in Cologne, Germany.